


Hosie Oneshots

by UnholyHelbig



Series: Tumblr Prompts [6]
Category: Legacies (TV 2018), The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Humor, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-04-12 12:30:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19132069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnholyHelbig/pseuds/UnholyHelbig
Summary: A collection of oneshots for Josie Saltzman and Hope Mikaelson.





	1. Stocky Situation

**Prompt- "I walk into the stock room at work and you're halfway through a window and seem to be balancing on a stack of boxes. you don't even work here what do you think you're doing."**

**Josie Saltzman considered**  herself a calm, levelheaded person. She got that from her mother. Her biological mother that turned out to be one of Georgia’s best surgeons. Calm enough to truth her precise hand movements and gusto to slice into a person- yeah, calm and levelheaded is exactly how she would describe herself  _most_ of the time.

Right now, her arms ached from the weight of a box of t-shirts with a little wolf in the corner. A dull sweat was pulling at the back of her work shirt and the door to the stock room closed with a subtle thud. She used to come here during her first week at the clothing store and scream into a pile of jeans. Now it was just a place to cool off and pretend like she was looking for something on the floor that she knew wasn’t back here in the first place.

The stock room was a maze: Set up with rolling shelves of product and boxes yet to be unloaded. It offered up a cool alternative to the labyrinth that was open to the public and Josie often found herself collapsed under a pile of boxes stacked under the window. Boxes that were currently in use.

Josie felt like a statue, or maybe one of those scientists from Jurassic Park that never seemed to learn their lesson. Either way, she was frozen, hoping that if she stayed quiet the very clear stranger in front of her attempting to crawl into the store through the propped window wouldn’t’ notice her.

She wore a simple black t-shirt that rode up along the expanse of her back- her hands grasping the sill of the window as auburn hair cascaded over broad shoulders. Josie wanted to sink into a hole and pretend she had to ring someone out. Anything that made it less possible for her to get murdered in the stock room, and oh god, they wouldn’t find her for days.

“I can explain.” The voice was light and didn’t match that of a killer, but they never really did. Josie glanced up, forgetting the numb feeling in her arms. “I’m not going to rob you or anything.”

She was pretty- gorgeous really. Her features soft and her eyes a piercing Kelley green that had the potential to shift to brown. Equally as beautiful. She had a smile despite her predicament, and she wore it well, a little dimple against her cheek.

“You uh, you don’t even work here, what the hell are you doing?”   Josie set the box down and shook her hands out, figuring if she needed to fight it would be better to have some feeling in her limbs. Some confidence.

“Trying to climb out of a window.” She stated like it was a matter of opinions.

Josie pursed her lips and stared at the girl. She remembered when she was first hired, and she had to sit through the video training. There was the normal stuff about folding shirts and how to greet people at the doors- but nothing about what to do when an attractive stranger quite literally dropped down from the higher-ups. Dare Josie say Heavens.

“No, I know. But why?”

“Oh, um. Okay so… my friend totally was shopping in here the other day and dropped her phone.”

Josie rose both of her eyebrows and resigned to crossing her arms over her chest. “The logical thing to do would be to go to the front desk.”

“Yeah, yes that should have been plan A, but I skipped right to B.” She laughed. It was a soft sound.

“More like plan Z,” Josie mumbled dejectedly but reached for the door anyway. They had a lost and found of sorts, it was behind the check out counter right with the safe. It was usually sunglasses and the occasional set of keys but none of it would sit too long. A phone would be easy to pin to a person.

She was startled by the close contact, the door closing quickly under her grasp with a light slam. Josie could smell sage, and maybe mint, on the girl’s breath. She would have been taller than the girl if it weren’t for the heeled boots. The stranger’s hand was right above her shoulder, pinning her close to the door as a heaping of blood rushed past her ears.

“Hold on,” She spoke, a dull whisper.

Josie pushed her back closer to the door and puffed out her chest, maybe an attempt to look tougher, but it wasn’t working. The girl was smirking, and it was nothing short of dangerous.

“We can uh, we can go get your friends phone, really. Not a big deal.”

“There’s not a phone. Forgive me, but I didn’t exactly count on finding a _helpful_ employee.”

Josie swallowed roughly and it felt like a knife was against her throat when it clearly wasn’t. In fact, it was nothing but a girl she would bet that she could take with some strategic thinking. One that broke into the store she worked for to gain minimum wage. Certainly not worth anything more than a black eye. She wasn’t about to play here.

“Me and a few buddies are planning a heist. Figured this would be an easy target. For God sakes, you guys leave your windows unlocked.” She smiled like a demon and Josie couldn’t find herself caring about anything else. “I was just supposed to see if we could actually get in this way but didn’t really think someone would walk in. At least now I know.”

Josie nodded like she understood, but she certainly didn’t. Not much anyway. The stranger straightened up and used her touch to smooth out the collar to Josie’s button down. Her touch was hot, and she fought against the urge to lean into it. Again, she swallowed.

“So, what now?”

“Now, I let you get back to work, and we cut our losses.” She shrugged her shoulders and drew her hand back. “It was a stupid idea anyway. You might have just saved me from making a very stupid decision.”

The stranger knelt and picked up the box that Josie was carrying before moving it on top of the stack she had attempted to scale earlier. “I might need this, not too good at actually climbing stuff.”

Josie was stunned into a mute silence as she watched. Her back was still against the door and her heart was still pounding. Senses enveloped. But still, she didn’t make a move for the door- to where the phone was. To where she could click in three simple numbers and fix the situation at hand. Instead, she stared. Stared and wondered.

“Wait,” She pushed herself away from the door. “I can help.”

“Get me up these boxes? Because I’m pretty sure I just need to latch my foot a certain way and-“

“No. Not the boxes. The robbery.”

The stranger stared her down, raking those neon eyes up and down before her lips parted and she let out something akin to a sigh. “I don’t know. Like I said, stupid idea. We would never be able to pull it off.”

“Not without me you won’t.” Josie found herself saying. “I have a key and we don’t have cameras. Come on, let me help you. I hate this place anyway.”

It was true, she hated it here more than most, but that still shouldn’t be enough to persuade her to  _rob_ the place. If anything, it would be an incentive to turn in a two weeks notice and leave a bad review online. Maybe, just maybe, it was the girl who stood in front of her. The danger that rolled off like waves. The slight taste she had gotten a few moments ago while pinned under her touch.

“My name is Hope.” She reached out a hand, once again close. “Ironically enough.”

“Josie.” She accepted the gesture. “Josie Saltzman.”


	2. In the Name of God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: I don't know man, give me something angsty with Josie and Hope?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is... not as angsty as I can get but sometimes it's easier to leave things where they are. Especially with soft subjects like this one.

**Josie’s hands were** cold, so much so that she couldn’t exactly unlatch the buttons of her coat without frustration. She could feel the smooth plastic under her fingertips, and suddenly the black scarf around her neck seemed too constricting, the fabric wrapping close to her jugular. Something so simple that was supposed to protect her made her feel trapped instead.

She could feel the emotion building behind the brick wall she had lain behind within her mind. A dam that was filling up slowly with water as black as night- the lump in her throat thickening as she struggled to steady her breath. _No,_ she told herself sternly _Lizzie is the one who gets to feel everything. She’s the one who’s allowed to break. But you have to stay strong._

Josie Saltzman had remained strong for her sister, for her school, for her father who had lost too much to even comprehend. But never for herself, she realized, standing in the school’s chapel under the blood-red stained glass. It left a watery reflecting against the dusty pews and the large golden cross that hovered over them with it’s looming shadow. Josie hadn’t even made it to the front row before she started to feel the hot air push against every inch of her.

It was empty. Across the courtyard and past the replaced statue of the gargoyle that still had those dusty demon eyes. The snow had made him look less threatening, dwarfing him into stone and nothing more. Her fingers tingled at the memory as she let out a frustrated grunt, once again trapped by her coat. It shouldn’t’ be this hard, nothing should be this hard. It was a coat- and she had only wanted to come here to think. For the silence. No one had enough faith to worship here anymore.

“can I help you with that?”

Josie gulped down stale air and whipped around in the carpeted aisle. She had her numb fingers raised, ready to shoot off a mumbled spell consisting of ancient languages. She frowned, she had been followed, and it brought her anger to boil. Her boots probably left tracks in the freshly fallen snow. It was her own fault, she decided.

“There’s no magic to siphon here,” Hope said, letting the intricately carved doors fall behind her. “Unless you want to take some from me.”

The Saltzman twin scoffed and dropped her hand completely. Hope wasn’t a danger, if anything, she had annoying perseverance about her that made Josie want to scream sometimes. But she never did. Instead, she just watched as the tribrid’s boots left half-moon snow prints against the floor.

She was close, within touching distance before she finally stopped and glanced around at the way the building stretched. How the bibles were left untouched and a thin layer of dust collected against everything. They both stood in the crimson light leaking from the full moon ushering through the stained glass. It shaded Hope’s face, demonized her features.

“I’ve never been in here.” She admitted, moving her golden stare back to Josie’s. “I have to admit, my family has never been much for faith. But the churches in New Orleans are nothing to cry home about. This one is a close second.”

She was rambling, and Josie could recognize that. She could recognize how close so was, and the questioning look of approval that Hope offered as she lilted her chin slightly to the side. Josie nodded and Hope laced her fingers against the collar of her peacoat before moving to the first button.

“Alaric never told me you were religious.”

“I’m not, I just needed a place to think.” Josie finally spoke, voice hoarse “I don’t think there’s much to be said about God when we’re capable of what we are.”

The first button came undone and Josie felt an immense pressure lift from her chest. Her fingers still numb and her lungs filling with the dull orange scent that Hope carried. Always mixed with blood, always mixed with the earth. This time it was comforting though.

“Any solace in what you’re thinking?”

“No, not much, I’m afraid.”

She swallowed thickly as the second button came undone, and then the third. Each lifted a weight from Josie’s chest until the coat was shed completely and the scarf soon followed. She draped them over the nearest pew and plopped down, ignoring the dust and the immittance of a kneel.

Hope carefully lowered herself into the wooden seat next to Josie. The two of them stared up at the blank cross. At the way the window warped and how quiet the church was against the howling wind and falling snow past the doors.

“People die too easily around here. And I think if there was a God, a higher power, that could prevent it, then it would have.” She stared, feeling Hope’s stare against the side of her face. It made her skin prickle. “My mother created this school to protect the outside from what we’re capable of. But who is going to protect us from each other?”

Hope swallowed thickly to fill the silence that the statement had created and the pit in her stomach she knew wouldn’t dissipate as quickly as the knot in her throat. Josie was right. Hopes mind flashing to leaning against the large doors of Alaric’s office. Trying not to listen as he explained to parents that entrusted them that the estate, that the school, wasn’t safe anymore.

“You can’t take all of that on, Josie.” Hope finally mustered the courage to say, her knee was hot against the Saltzman girl who resigned to holding her breath to keep out that intoxicating rusty scent. “None of this is your fault, and you- hey, look at me.”

It wasn’t a question; it was a statement and Hope grasped Josie’s chin and turned her tear-stained eyes towards hers. They looked blood-red in the reflection of the window, and she searched for something other than tenderness.

“It’s true, we can’t be there to save everyone, but the people we have helped wouldn’t see it that way. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the closest thing to safety people have in this place and you can’t burden yourself with the fear, with the… with the pain of not being able to help everyone.”

“If we don’t help them, who will?”

Hope had a slight twinge of a smile against her lips. One of those effortlessly charming ones that made Josie cross her ankles and look away at the sheer cockiness that it possessed. Most of the time she had that look when she knew they had won. This time it was more of an effort of comfort. “Don’t know, Jo. Maybe God.”


	3. Gnomes & Laundry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Hosie "you keep stealing my clothes"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still learning about them as people enough to write their characters, It might take a few times before I get used to it!

**She didn’t notice** it at first. It was something subtle like a mosquito bite or a dull ache after a long day on her feet. Hope never paid much mind to what she wore- because what she wore was always embedded in gold and blue. Always stamped with the crest of the Salvatore school. It was easy to misplace something when everyone had the same exact thing in their closets.

But when she started to circulate a couple of t-shirts (and on occasion a blazer that was telling of her brief foray with the Stallions debate team) she knew something was up. Maybe a mix up in the extensive laundry rooms. Hell, Hope even considered gnomes that got off on pilfering random objects that happened to take from in her wardrobe.

She breathed in a steady heaping of the soap-soaked air and frowned down at her half-empty basket of clothes. There was no stock in that saying about the half-drained glass. The way she saw it, she was losing clothes and whoever was stealing them was gaining something.

“Oh! I’m sorry I didn’t know someone else was in here.” A soft voice sounded from behind her. It made her skin prickled with heat. “I can… leave.” 

Josie Saltzman was struggling with her own bag of unwashed clothes. They weighted her down from one side and her cheeks were reddened from the journey down here. The basement was cold, she wore a flannel that looked oddly familiar over a Stallions hoodie.

“No, it’s okay,” Hope said, offering up a sort of smile. “I’m just finishing up.”

“Oh, okay” Josie let out a breath of relief, walking towards the washing machine as Hope reached down and grabbed a pair of pants and another t-shirt from the dryer. She could feel Josie’s eyes flick to her every couple of seconds.

“Have you had any clothes go missing?” Hope shut the dryer with a small click.

“Huh? No-“Josie’s words rushed together. “I mean, not me personally but anyone could have sticky fingers around here. It’s a big school. Really big.”

Hope had let the conversation die and left Josie to it before she ascended the stairs to the old Salvatore school. It had always been extravagant and dark and gave her a good picture of the brothers who owned it before it was turned into what it was today. Still- she wished it was a little more up to date with a laundry room on the actual floors instead of what used to be an old wine cellar.

There was an instant warmth that enveloped her as soon as she walked down the hallway towards her room, laundry perched on her hip and thinly veiled discontent on her face. She set the basket down and went to open the door, pushing her way into the room.

A crimson and black flannel sat draped across the nicely made bed. Hope blew air out of her nose and picked up the piece of clothing. Gnomes, yeah, definitely gnomes.

 **The next time** Hope noticed something missing, it was a sweatshirt. One that wasn’t marked with anything blue or yellow, instead it was a simple gray sweatshirt that had an embroidered _M_ against the front. She had never understood her families need to brand everything- but when she stole it from her aunts closet one spring break, she couldn’t help but to sleep in it every night.

Tonight, when she started to rifle through her closet, she noticed it was gone. Admittedly she had stripped herself of it earlier in the day and left it on her closet floor. But she still expected it to be balled up in the corner where she had left it.

Hope let out a grunt of frustration and pulled the closet shut again, settling on pulling on a t-shirt and flopping down on her bed. These gnomes were going to get it, she decided right then and there, as soon as she saw them pilfering another item of her clothing, she was sure to drop kick one.

“Hope?”

She shot up quick enough to see stars in her eyes. That didn’t’ sound like a gnome. In fact, it sounded like Josie Saltzman. She stood, leaning against her doorframe with a guilty look on her soft features and something grey clenched between her fingers.

“I wanted to… I think this is yours?” She thrust her hand forward with the sweatshirt in it.

“Oh?” Hope stood and crossed the small expanse to meet Josie halfway. She sheepishly handed over the sweatshirt. “Where’d you find it?”  

“I uh, I’m kind of the one that took it.”

“Oh,”

Her voice was less leaden that time. So, Josie was the one that had been lifting all of her clothes these last few months. Shrinking her wardrobe drastically. It was hard to feel any type of anger towards someone who looked so innocent. Someone who always seemed to color inside the lines no matter how hard Hope, or even Penelope, tried to lead the marker away.

Lizzie. Lizzie, she expected this from.

“I’m really sorry,” She rushed out in a breath. “You left your shirt the other month and I accidentally brought it up to my room and it was super comfy so I just kind of fell asleep in it. Then I took your flannel and promised I wouldn’t take anything else after that but then I saw your sweatshirt and-“

Josie took in a long heaping of air, Hope studying her “It’s really hard to sleep sometimes. And somehow… I don’t know, it just helped.”

Josie had been an insomniac since they were kids, but Hope hadn’t paid much mind to it before. She was fine for a long while, sleeping through most of the night if not to wake up just as the sun peaked over the horizon. Hope would struggle to sneak in late at night, all the while avoiding the third floorboard from the front door because it moaned. And Josie would always be sitting in the kitchen bathed in warm light. They had a silent agreement.

Hope realized she was still talking, taking her shoulders and squeezing them slightly. “Jo, it’s _okay._ ”

“What?”

“I said it’s fine. I’m not mad.”

“you’re not?” Josie let her shoulders slump in relief as she stood up straighter. “Wait, why not? I physically stole something that’s yours.”

“mm, you’re not helping your case.” Hope let her hands fall to her sides. She grasped at the sweatshirt she had thrown onto the bed. “But in all honesty, you taking my sweatshirt is better than the alternative. If it helps you sleep, then you can wear it. Never hurts to have something comfortable around.”

Josie narrowed her eyes. “What was the alternative?”

 _Gnomes._ “Don’t worry about it.”

 


End file.
